Géraud De Veyrines, Bishop of Paphos, and the Defense of the Kingdom of Armenia in the 1320S

perspektywy kultury / The Mediterranean Sea—The Center of the World or the Periphery? perspectives on culture No. 30 (3/2020) Christopher David Schabel http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5508-6516 University of Cyprus [email protected] DOI: 10.35765/pk.2020.3003.07 Géraud de Veyrines, Bishop of Paphos, and the Defense of the Kingdom of Armenia in the 1320s ABSTRACT The activities of Géraud de Veyrines, papal nuncio and then bishop of Paphos in the 1320s, have been known since 1962, when Jean Richard published Instru- menta Miscellanea in the Vatican Archives on the accounts of his financial deal- ings as nuncio on Cyprus. These accounts concern his handling of a large fund of 30,000 gold florins for the defense of the Kingdom of Armenia in Cilicia, the raising of clerical tithes and taxes on Cyprus in support of the Kingdoms of Cyprus and Armenia, the legacy of Patriarch Pierre of Jerusalem, and the debts and property of Géraud’s predecessor as bishop of Paphos, Aimery de Nabi naud. This article publishes the remaining Instrumenta Miscellanea per- taining to these accounts—number 1086 and the unpublished portion of number 1045—and updates the history of the Armenian fund in papal letters, many of which Professor Richard only discovered later, while compiling the third vol- ume of the Bullarium Cyprium, published a half-century later, in 2012. 1 KEYWORDS: Armenia, Cyprus, papacy, Crusades, Géraud de Veyrines STRESZCZENIE Géraud de Veyrines, biskup Pafos i obrona Królestwa Armenii w 1320 Pierwsze wzmianki o działalności Gérauda de Veyrinesa, nuncjusza papie- skiego, a następnie biskupa Pafos w latach dwudziestych XIV wieku, pojawiły się w 1962 roku, kiedy Jean Richard opublikował w Archiwach Watykańskich kursywa: Instrumenta miscellanea – zapis swoich transakcji finansowych jako 1 Generally the papal letters are only accessible in often inadequate and sometimes inaccurate summaries. These summaries are cited below, but frequently the information is found solely in the full text in the manuscripts cited in the summaries. The full text will be published in the continuation of the Bullarium Cyprium. A few of the letters are in Raynaldus (1646–1677), but this is not noted below. Pertinent earlier summaries are used sporadically in Coureas (2010), but without the benefit of the Bullarium Cyprium. I thank Peter Edbury for his comments. Suggested citation: Schabel, Ch. (2020). Géraud de Veyrines, Bishop of Paphos, and the Defense of the Kingdom of Armenia in the 1320s. Perspectives on Culture, 3(30), pp. 81–103. DOI: 10.35765/ pk.2020.3003.07. 81 Submitted: 30.09.2020 Accepted: 30.10.2020 perspektywy kultury / perspectives on culture The Mediterranean Sea—The Center of the World or the Periphery? No. 30 (3/2020) nuncjusza na Cyprze. Dokument ten stanowi źródło informacji o wykorzysta- niu znacznych funduszy w wysokości 30 000 złotych florenów na obronę Kró- lestwa Armenii w Cylicji oraz zbieraniu dziesięcin duchownych i podatków na Cyprze na wsparcie Królestw Cypru i Armenii. Ponadto opisuje on schedę patriarchy Piotra z Jerozolimy oraz wymienia długi i majątek poprzednika Gérauda, wcześniejszego biskupa Pafos, Aimerego de Nabinaud. W niniej- szym artykule udostępnione zostaną pozostałe kursywa: Instrumenta miscellanea odnoszące się do tychże ksiąg – dokument nr 1086 i niepublikowana część dokumentu 1045. Przedstawione zostaną tu także nowe fakty dotyczące zapi- sanej w listach papieskich historii funduszu ormiańskiego. Wiele z tych listów profesor Richard odkrył w późniejszym okresie, podczas opracowywania trze- ciego tomu książki Bullarium Cyprium, który ujrzał światło dzienne pół wieku później, w 2012 roku. SŁOWA KLUCZE: Armenia, Cypr, papiestwo, krucjaty, Géraud de Veyrines The history of the relations between the Kingdoms of Cyprus and Arme- nia from the fall of Acre in 1291 to the final fall of Cilician Armenia in 1375 has yet to be written, because not all the source material is avail- able in print. This article is a small contribution to this project, includ- ing the edition of two documents in the recently renamed Archivio Apos- tolico Vaticano: Instrumenta Miscellanea 1045 and 1086. Because of space limitations, the paper deals with these documents only insofar as they concern the project of Géraud de Veyrines, first papal nuncio and then bishop of Paphos, to support the defense of the Kingdom of Armenia in the 1320s. Cyprus and Armenia after the Fall of Acre After the fall of Acre and most other Western Christian outposts in Syria– Palestine in 1291, the Kingdoms of Cyprus and Armenia took on a more important geopolitical role as the last bastions of Latin Christianity in the Eastern Mediterranean. Not only would the two kingdoms be crucial for any recuperation of the Holy Land, but they were now more vulnerable to attack from the advancing Muslims, primarily Mamluk Egypt, but also the Turks of Asia Minor. Although the general population of Cyprus was mostly Greek, with a number of Syrians of various rites, some Armenians, and various other groups, the nobility and some of the merchant class were of Western origin and of the Latin rite, ecclesiastically loyal to Rome. The situation in Cilician Armenia was even more complicated: the nobility consisted of culturally Westernized Armenians, but again the general 82 Christopher David Schabel – Géraud de Veyrines, Bishop of Paphos population included many Greeks and other groups. After 1198 the Arme- nian Church was officially united with Rome, but much of the Armenian aristocracy and episcopal hierarchy was hostile to this union, while the Greeks and others remained loyal to their own traditions (Coureas, 1994, 1995; Mutafian, 2012). The royal houses of Cyprus and Armenia grew closer in the course of the thirteenth century, and before the fall of Acre the popes supplied dis- pensations for children of King Hugh III of Cyprus (1267–1284), who had eleven legitimate offspring, to marry children of King Leo II (or III) of Armenia (1269–1289), who had sixteen of his own. Hugh’s eighth child, Margaret, married the future King Thoros III of Armenia (1293–1298), who was murdered, and her son by Thoros became Leo III (or IV, 1303– 1307), who was also murdered. Hugh’s fourth son and child, Amaury, married Leo II’s tenth child and fourth daughter, Isabella. Moreover, of the six children Amaury had with Isabella, his third son and child, Guy, would become King Constantine II of Armenia (1342–1344), his fourth, John, would be the father of the last king, Leo V (or VI, 1374–1375), and his sixth child and only daughter, Agnes or Maria, either married or became engaged to her unfortunate cousin Leo III (or IV), who died without children (Hill, 1948; Edbury, 1991; Coureas, 1994, 1995; Mutafian 2012). It would seem that the lineages were interwoven enough that the two isolated kingdoms would support one another against the Muslim threat, and as fate would have it Amaury became heir to his childless older brother, King Henry II (1385–1324). In 1306 a coup overthrew Henry and placed Amaury in power, which at first seemed to bode well for relations between Cyprus and Armenia. Among the justifications for the coup were complaints about Henry’s foreign policy and defense initiatives. Henry’s failure to aid the Kingdom of Armenia, which was then under the rule of Amaury’s nephew and perhaps son-in-law Leo III, was very high on the list. After Leo’s murder, Amaury’s brother-in-law via Isabella, Oshin (1307–1320), became king. In early 1310, when Amaury’s support on Cyprus had dwindled, he sent his brother King Henry into exile and con- finement at the court of King Oshin in Armenia, who around this time even married Henry’s and Amaury’s youngest sister, the eleventh child of Hugh III, Isabella (divorcing her in 1316) (Hill, 1948; Edbury, 1991; Schabel & Minervini, 2008; Edbury, 2016). Unfortunately for ties between the two kingdoms, Amaury himself was murdered in 1310, and King Henry was forced swear to terms that were beneficial to Armenia in order to secure his release. Naturally, once he was safely back in Cyprus Henry refused to abide by the oath, which he claimed was given under duress, and for the next decade the diplomatic efforts of the papacy managed to prevent open war, but could not establish 83 perspektywy kultury / perspectives on culture The Mediterranean Sea—The Center of the World or the Periphery? No. 30 (3/2020) peace between the two Christian outposts. Oshin died in mid-1320, suc- ceeded by his son Leo IV (or V, 1320–1341), who in the summer of 1321 married Alice, the daughter of Margaret of Ibelin by the regent of Arme- nia—another Oshin, of Gorhigos. This Oshin was thought to have poi- soned King Oshin, and, in early 1323, to have had Amaury’s widow, Isa- bella, and their eldest surviving son, Henry, killed; their firstborn, Hugh, had died earlier. If this is true, or if King Henry II of Cyprus believed it to be true, he may have been less negatively disposed toward Armenia at the very end of his life (Perrat, 1927; Edbury, 1991; Schabel & Georgiou, 2016). If so, the timing was right, because Armenia suffered from Mam- luk attacks in the early 1320s. When Henry II finally decided to come to Armenia’s aid, he drew the wrath of the Sultan against Cyprus (Bullarium Cyprium III, 2012, r-161). On December 20, 1322 Pope John XXII sent three versions of a long bull with at least twenty surviving copies in which he called for general assistance and a crusade for both kingdoms (Bul- larium Cyprium III, 2012, r-151). It was in this context that the pope sent Géraud de Veyrines to Outremer.

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